Instead of Terry Maxon's three idle thoughts for Friday, I thought I'd offer some recent tidbits about the intersection of technology and airlines from around the world:

* Luggage etags

More airlines are developing digital luggage tags and tracking systems to speed up the check-in process and make lost luggage a thing of the past.

The idea is to replace the long paper luggage tags airline agents loop around luggage with a hard plastic reusable tag. The new tag uses electronic ink technology as with a Kindle to display a passenger name, flight information and a bar code.

Air France and KLM have been working on an electronic bag tag and baggage tracker – eTag and eTrack, according to media reports. (See video above.)

Last fall, British Airways began testing a digital luggage tag that works with an airline smartphone app. (See video below.)

* More airlines offer social seating

Airline passengers typically fall into two categories: Those who like to talk to strangers during a flight and those who don't.

South African Airways has launched an online and mobile check-in feature to help passengers choose a seat based on common interests with fellow passengers. If you like to knit, perhaps you can sit next to a person who owns a yarn store.

South African Airways' Social check-in helps passengers evaluate empty seats by who occupies the nearby seats. Here's how it works: At check-in, passengers can share certain Facebook details about themselves, such as interests or their job. Other passengers can see your details and you can see their information.

American Airlines (and its US Airways subsidiary) and Southwest Airlines have no plans to implement social seating or e-tag technology at the moment. Both airlines are in the middle of merger integrations -- American with US Airways and Southwest with AirTran Airways.

"We have our work cut out for us until we are fully combined into a single airline, but innovations including digital luggage tags and social seating options are customer benefits we will keep on our radar until we are at a point where we can begin to innovate on a larger scale," said American spokesman Casey Norton.